Kaushik
Arakalgud

The Builder Who Never Stops Building

There is a particular kind of technologist who cannot stay still. Not because they are restless, but because the gap between what technology can do and what it actually does for people is too obvious to ignore. Kaushik Arakalgud is one of those builders.

He works in AI at Domestika - the global online learning platform for creative professionals that raised $110 million in January 2022 and crossed a $1.3 billion valuation, becoming one of the most significant edtech unicorns of its era. With over 1,400 employees and $75 million in annual revenue, Domestika is the kind of company that turns a passion for illustration, animation, or branding into a structured, world-class learning experience. Kaushik is part of the team making that smarter.

But that is only half the story. Simultaneously - with the audacity only founders understand - he is also Co-Founder and CTO of Aimwiser, a startup he launched in July 2021 at the intersection of artificial intelligence and neuroscience, designed to transform how organizations understand and support their people.

Based in Bengaluru, Karnataka - India's technology capital and a city synonymous with engineering ambition - Kaushik studied Computer Science at PES College of Engineering. What set him apart early on was not just the degree, but how he used the time around it: building a virtual classroom to connect remote learners to quality education. The thread from that project to his current work is obvious in retrospect. It always is.

Inside the Creative Unicorn

Domestika started in 2002 as an online forum for creative professionals - a niche corner of the internet where graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers gathered. A decade later, it reinvented itself as an online learning platform. By 2022, it had reached unicorn status.

The platform today offers thousands of video-based courses across design, photography, illustration, animation, marketing, music, and a growing suite of AI-assisted creative tools. It teaches in multiple languages, serves a global community, and has turned creative education into a subscription-driven, professionally produced, community-backed enterprise.

Kaushik's role sits at the frontier of what Domestika is becoming: an AI-native creative learning platform. With the company's backing from Zeev Ventures and GSV Ventures, and its rapid international expansion, AI is central to the next chapter. That is where his expertise lands.

Aimwiser: What Happens When AI Meets Neuroscience

Most wellness platforms are questionnaires dressed up as insights. Aimwiser is not that. Co-founded by Kaushik in July 2021, alongside Syeda Afjalina Wasi and Shahin Nishat Karim, Aimwiser describes itself as an AI and neuroscience-powered People and Wellness Intelligence SaaS ecosystem - a mouthful that actually contains a sharp idea.

The platform targets modern organizations with three interlocking offerings: AI-powered employee experience tools for performance and wellbeing; AI-assisted coaching insights combined with access to human coaches; and an all-in-one SaaS platform that treats people intelligence and wellness intelligence as a single discipline rather than separate silos.

In March 2023, Kaushik pitched Aimwiser at the "Connecting Ideas With Money" investor session - one of those forums where the quality of the idea has to do the heavy lifting, because the room is full of people who have seen every pitch before. The session was recorded, and the video stands as the clearest public window into how Kaushik thinks about the problem: not from the perspective of a product manager checking boxes, but from someone who genuinely believes the intersection of neuroscience and AI is underexplored territory in the workplace.

The timing is significant. Kaushik founded Aimwiser at a moment when remote work had fundamentally disrupted how organizations understood their employees, when burnout was entering the business vocabulary seriously for the first time, and when AI had just become capable enough to do something useful with behavioral and emotional data at scale.

Three Plates Spinning

The Arc

The Rare Builder Who Stays in the Room

There is a certain type of founder who builds a company, sells it or leaves it, and moves on. Kaushik is a different kind - the sort who holds multiple commitments simultaneously, not because he is spread thin, but because he genuinely believes the problems are connected. Creative education and human wellness are not unrelated industries. Both are about helping people become better versions of themselves. Both are ripe for AI. Both require a builder who can see the system, not just the product.

His LinkedIn profile - 500+ connections, self-described as a "passionate builder focused on using technology to positively impact society" - reads like a mission statement rather than a resume item. That is not marketing. Engineers who write that phrase and mean it tend to show up repeatedly in multiple ventures over a decade, quietly building things that work.

The connective tissue across every venture he has touched - from the student virtual classroom to Domestika's AI layer to Aimwiser's neuroscience-backed coaching - is the same: technology should change what is possible for real people, not just what is possible on a slide deck.

The Details That Matter

See the Work

The clearest public window into how Kaushik thinks about Aimwiser and the neuroscience-AI space is his investor pitch: